


i hear the colors in the flowers

by Aubergion



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: And a Crisis of Faith, Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Gen, Minor Body Horror, Minor Dagna/Sera (Dragon Age), Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Lavellan (Dragon Age), Past Lavellan/Solas (Dragon Age), Swearing, so like pretty much what you'd expect from Trespasser really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26020042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aubergion/pseuds/Aubergion
Summary: After all that nonsense with elfy mirrors and Evanuris and that creepy library full of ghosts, what Sera really needs is a drink. That's not quite what she gets.
Relationships: Lavellan & Sera
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19





	i hear the colors in the flowers

**Author's Note:**

> I've never been quite satisfied with the ways Trespasser allows (or doesn't allow) your Inquisitor to respond to the revelations about the Evanuris in-game, or the ways in which companions can and cannot react. So I wrote this.
> 
> Thanks to 1mocha for beta help!

The Winter Palace is dark now, and creepy-quiet. It’s not ‘cause it’s late. Nobles never give a toss about late. Sera’s seen them stay up until sunrise partying while someone (her) stole all their frilly underthings and hung them up on the pokey bits of statues all around town.

But there aren’t any parties tonight. Ever since all the qunari showed up, everything’s been locked down tighter than a Chanter’s ass. The only people around are the Inquisition guards in their green hoods, out on every corner with their swords and their shields. No one to bother, nothing fun to do. She doesn’t even have her Widdle here - she’d stayed at Skyhold, and well clear of this mess. Nothing to do but worry, about mirrors and magic and floating ruins that wouldn’t sodding stay the right way up - no. She’s definitely not going to think about that one.

She strolls back over to the tavern. If she’s got to sit around with her thumb up her ass all night, worrying about demons and qunari and Eva-whosits, she’s sure as fuck not doing it sober.

There’s a single candle in the window, and the door swings ajar in the evening breeze. Thornton’s there too, standing not quite at attention with a crossbow at his feet. The bags under his eyes are dark enough to stand out against his dark skin, even in this shit light, so she knows he’s been up _way_ too long. He smiles wryly and waves as she approaches. “You here to see her Ladyship?”

Looks like she’s not the only one who’s had the thought of getting sauced. “You know he’s probably bored sick of that by now?” Sera asks. Josephine’d gone around before they got to the Winter Palace and made a point of telling everyone to make sure to remember to call the Inquisitor the _Lady_ Inquisitor, and never Lord, because otherwise it would confuse all the delicate Orlesian nobs or something. Which is stupid, because Sera knows _Sid’s_ introduced himself as both and doesn’t much care. If anything, he likes it best when he can mess people up on it. And there’s only one Inquisitor in any case, so it shouldn’t matter if he wants to be one or the other. But no one said nobles were smart. Sera’s been calling him a Lord all week instead. The faces the Orlesians make under their masks are nearly as good as throwing pies. “Anyway, just here for a drink,” she says, instead of arguing more about it. “I’ll grab you one too, yeah?”

“Chargers came by earlier and damn near cleared the place out,” Thornton warns, “but I’ve got it on good authority there’s still a decent rum or two in there.”

“Sounds like a real party. Won’t be a few minutes.” Sera ducks inside and looks around. Yeesh. Thornton hadn’t been kidding about the Chargers. There’s not a bottle on the wall. There’s also not that many chairs. And there’s Inky, sitting at some crap-cluttered table in his stupid shiny red getup, by the flickering light of one half-melted candle and his glowing hand. The hand looks… bad. It’d been pretty bad in the Deep Roads, but it looks worse now. Very green, and sort of flakey round the edges. Actually, he looks pretty green too, under all that gold-shiny ink on his face. It’s just the light though. Probably. Hopefully. She takes a half-step towards the bar. Get in, get out, go drinking with Thornton. But she hesitates. Sid is more important than rum. Fuck, is that a real thing she just thought? This must be what getting old feels like.

Sera moves an empty cup out of the way and sits down on the table, wiggling a little until she finds a nice comfortable spot. Inky doesn’t even look up, just keeps staring at all his weird junk. Never a good sign. She doesn’t know good words for things. Thom does, sometimes, and Varric does nothing but words, but all she’s got is dirty jokes and arrows, and this doesn’t seem like a good time for either. She sits quietly for a moment, kicking her feet in the air. But quiet is so boring. “Oi. Inky. Inquisitor. My Lord Shipface.” Nothing. She pokes him in the forehead. “Sidonie? Everything alright in there?”

He starts, his chair rocking back precariously on two legs. Sid reaches out to catch himself, and the one hand does that pretty alright. But the glowing hand hits the edge of the table and _squishes_ , like a soggy piece of bread.

“Eugh!” Sera yells, jumping off the table.

Sid hisses sharply, curling forward around his hand. The front legs of the chair hit the ground again. Sid pushes himself back into a sitting position, short white hair flopping into his face. He blows a lock out of his face and tries to lounge casually. It doesn’t really work. At all. “I - Sera. Yes. What was it?

“Is. Everything. Alright?” Sera asks again. She walks around to Inky’s side of the table. “Though it kinda sounds like a stupid question now. You brought like, healers and stuff to this dumb meeting, right? Cause I don’t know much about healing but I don’t think hands are supposed to do _that_.” She points at his hand, which is still gently sputtering.

“We didn’t, actually.” He winces and massages his wrist. “It was supposed to be a peaceful negotiation. Even the guards were just to show off for the nobles. Cassandra sent for healers, but-”

“But Skyhold’s like, ages away.” And meanwhile, Inky’s hand is turning to green magic mush and no one knows how to do anything about it. Great. “I’m almost sorry your dumb ex-boyfriend isn’t here.”

Sid arches an eyebrow, probably. The lighting isn’t very good, and his eyebrows are even paler than the rest of him. “No you aren’t.”

“Well, no,” Sera admits, hopping back up on the table, on his side of it this time. “Solas was annoying as shit. But if he _was_ here, he’d just make that one frowny face and say something about ancient elfy this and the Fade that and do some of his really weird magic shit, and then your hand wouldn’t be all flakey and gross.”

“Hm. There is that.” Sid looks back down at the table. Sera can see it a little more clearly now, what he’s got here besides the candlestick. The stupid spiky crown he always wears when he’s being all important and the Inquisitor, Lord or Lady, sitting up on his stupid spiky chair. A cup of wine he’s barely touched and no bottle to match. A handful of black tiles that shimmer weirdly under the candlelight and the… hand-le-light? No, that’s something else. Just the handlight.

There’s almost like drawings on them, but not good drawings. More like… soap-bubble drawings, shiny not-quite-black on slightly differently shiny black. Just looking at them makes her eyes hurt. She stops looking, picks up the wine goblet instead and takes a swig. It’s fancy-fruity stuff, not nearly enough to get proper drunk on, and the cup is stupid and gold with bits of bright gemstone in it. She resolves to steal it out of principle. But, if she has to admit it, the wine is pretty good.

“Would you believe me if I said I was alright?” Sid asks. He’s smiling, but it’s not a happy smile, all sad and far-away.

Sera frowns over the goblet. “Maybe? Not really. People who’re alright don’t have bits of their body squish like rotten fruit. And I mean…. All that ruins stuff. None of that bothers you at all?” It’d bother her, she thinks, if some thousand-year-old git showed up and told her Andraste was just some asshole magey noble shit. But Sid’s never been elfy-elfy, not really - never looked at her like she was all sad and broken for not knowing the songs and the stories and all those different gods. So maybe it’s not the same for him. But he still _looks_ sad.

Sid laughs, softly, and shakes his head. Little bits of green fall from his hand at the movement. “We came here for a meaningless negotiation. At best, we’d have wasted a week being bored to sleep. And now? I have walked in the footsteps of my ancestors. I’ve held their works in my hands. I have seen the legacy of my gods with my own eyes, and I know they were real. Why would any of that bother me?”

Okay, now she’s _really_ worried. The Anchor thingy’s put enough cracks in his hand. It can’t put any cracks in his head, can it? She doesn’t see any. That doesn’t make her feel any better somehow. “But they weren’t? The veilfire wall thing said - Andraste, that sounds so fucking stupid - but it said that they were just mages who - who kept slaves. Like some Vint bullshit, but elves this time. Like - like Cory-fee-feet. And he wasn’t a god.” 

She knows his name. But she’s made a point of not using it for the last two years. It works most days to cut that ugly tosser down a peg, and it works tonight, because Sid laughs again. An actually-funny laugh, this time, and an actually-fun smile, all crinkly and sharp round the eyes. “You’re right. That does sound pretty stupid.” He rests his elbows on the table, right hand massaging the squidgy marked one, and looks up at Sera. “Fen’Harel’s followers made those murals. The Dread Wolf. The traitor god who speaks in trickery and lies. I’d take anything they say with a whole wagon of salt.”

Well that wasn’t what Sera had meant at all, And she knows Inky knows it. But she knows Fen’harel, a bit. She knows a bit about the Creators, from back when she thought that it was like something to prove. And Sid’s taught her some good swears about him that always made Solas look like he’d sucked a lemon, which was fun. But the Dread Wolf lying in those pictures, lying inside her head…. “ _Can_ those things lie?” she asks. “I mean it was just like my thoughts, in my head, but they weren’t… mine. You’re saying old elfy magic can put _fake_ words in your head? That’s just wrong.” It’s even creepier than Creepy taking thoughts out of her head and saying them, because at least then they’re still _hers_. She knows where they’ve been. What if the pictures in the Mythal temple had done that too? Or the rune things Dagna studies? And none of them had known it? Sera shudders and drinks again. It’s a horrible thought. She doesn’t have enough wine for that kind of thought. There’s not enough wine in Orlais for that kind of thought.

“Why not? Wouldn’t be any harder than putting real ones there.” Sid shrugs, which is not nearly enough of a reaction to old dead elves putting _thoughts_ in his _head_. Then again, he had like. Inhaled a well full of elfy sorrows and come out of it speaking in tongues. So maybe he’s just used to that sort of thing by now. “It’s just a record of an idea,” he continues. “People have wrong ideas all the time. They even write them down. The mosaics are the same thing. Not writings, but… records, of ideas. Some of them are true. Some of them aren’t.”

“But it _could_ be right?” Sera asks again, louder. She’s out of wine, and wishes she wasn’t. The little crystals on the stem of the goblet dig into her clenched hands. “It’d make sense if it was right. I mean. Queens and shit are real. Stupid, but real. And magic is weird, but it’s still real weird, you know? But like… gods, lots of gods, all just walking around like they’re real people….”

“Sure, it _could_ be right. The Creators might just be like you and me and our dear Divine, just more uptight nobles in even bigger and dumber hats.” Sid picks up his own spiky crown, and gestures with it as he talks. “But our dear departed Coryphisnits was just as likely to have been right about the Maker being gone and how it totally wasn’t his fault that the Golden City went all black, and he _really_ had no choice except to summon like, ten thousand demons to ‘fix’ it." He makes little clumsy finger-quotes around his head. Sera snorts. “The Dread Wolf wanted the Creators gone so badly he was willing to destroy the whole world. All those ruins we saw - he was the one who ruined them in the first place, with the Veil. Between you and me, I don’t feel like I should trust anyone who hates the gods - so bad they’re willing to end the world over it - to tell me the truth _about the gods_ , you know? I know what I was taught. I know what I believe, and now I get to know what my ancestors believed when the gods still walked among us. That’s real. That’s true. Fen’Harel’s pictures are just that.”

And Sera wants to keep arguing, is the thing. Her mouth opens and closes, like a fish gasping and grasping for breath. But she saw the library too. She remembers the books that weren’t and the floating ruins and the _screaming_ \- 

_What is this Veil? What has Fen’Harel done?_

The Maker was supposed to have done that. Separated everything from everything else. Earth and sky and whatnot, like it says in the Chant. But she’d heard that orange ghost thing. Everything it said. She only pretends not to listen. The Veil was not there, and then it was. The voices had said that. And wolf-dick-for-brains sure as shit isn’t the Maker. But it was made. And _someone_ had to make it -

A strangled noise escapes from her throat.

“Sera?” There’s something warm on her leg. Inky’s hand, all glowy. It still feels like a hand though, just… warmer. “Are _you_ alright? With the Vir Dirthara and everything else we saw?”

Her eyes sting. She throws the stupid cup down onto the ground and wipes them angrily. “I - I don’t know!” A whine creeps into her voice, and she can’t crush it out. Her head feels hot and thick. “If they were demons, or nobs, then it’d be okay. But gods are supposed to be all far away. Like hazy dream things. They’re not supposed to be just walking around making people do stuff. You can have demons do that and still the Maker, or nobles and the Maker - but _gods_ and the Maker don’t fit, not both at once. And if the stuff you’re saying is really real-” the words catch in her throat. She can’t say it. She doesn’t even want to think it. Salt stings her cheeks. Fuck.

Sid’s chair scrapes against the ground. Warm hands come up to hold her, rubbing soft circles on her back. “Shh. Shh. Let it out.”

She smushes her face into his shoulder - the good one - and sobs, her hands fisted in his shirt. “Just _one_ time, I almost thought I knew things. I want the world to make sense. That’s all. Why is it so hard for things to make sense?” she yells. “Stupid - fucking - Qun shit!”

The words come out damp and mangled, but Sid nods anyways. “Stupid fucking Qun shit,” he agrees, solemnly.

That startles a damp laugh out of her, and a loud snort that blows snot all over. She pulls back and wipes her face on her sleeve. “Ick, gross,” she says. ”Um. Sorry. About your lord fancypants shirt.”

Sid shrugs and rocks back on his heels. He doesn’t even blink. “It’s alright. There’s no point in being the Inquisitor if you can’t get a spare shirt.” He pauses, chewing his lip. “I guess I just don’t see why there _couldn’t_ be the Creators and also some sort of Maker thing that spoke to Andraste, theoretically.”

“He’s not a thing!” Sera blurts out. “He’s the _Maker_. And it just - it doesn’t fit! There’s just one god. That’s what the Chant _says_. And the Chant’s part of it. With the Maker. All of it. You can’t just… pick and choose the bits."

“Inquisitor Ameridan made it fit,” Sid points out. “Andraste and Ghilan’nain, side by side. And he’s not the only one. There’s thousands of people in Halamshiral who’d say the same. The gods raised those two up to divinity. It’s not my story. But it’s one I’ve heard.”

She nods, slowly, kicking her feet. Yeah, she remembers that shrine, with the little pretty flowers she’s only ever seen out in the Dales. And she’s seen people think that before. Not in cities, but out in the farms, where a few dozen little people couldn’t muster the shits to give about who did what if the harvest came in on time. The little shrines with the sunburst and all these little figures out beneath it, like chess pieces. The really elfy Dalish, the ones she’s met, would hate that sort of thing. Sid hadn’t hated it, though, up in the mountains, had just made a little ‘hmm’ noise and left some acorns from his pocket there.

“I guess,” she mumbles, after a moment. “But I never - it doesn’t - I don’t know how to do any of that? With the halla-mums and stuff. All that… elfiness.” And she’s never been that. She doesn’t want to, really. The Chantry hates people like that too. She can’t imagine what those sisters in their red and white would say, if she went up and said some stuff about Ghilan’nain to a statue of Andraste, and left a little halla statue there like Ameridan did. Maybe they’d shoot at her, like the Dalish. And then she wouldn’t have anywhere. She sniffles, a bit, and mops her face again.

Sid - Sid _snorts_ at this, like he’s not taking her seriously at all. “I’d like to see that,” he says, in an under-breath way she’s probably not supposed to hear but does anyways. Louder, he continues. “I mean - you don’t have to pray to our gods, Sera. It’s not like with the Maker. The Creators aren’t going to get less real or less important just because one person didn’t want to sing for them.”

“Well, bully for the Creators,” Sera snaps, too quick. It’s all so _easy_ for Sid. He gets to actually know things. She hates that, and she hates that she hates that, and she stares at her hands, twisting them in her lap instead of saying more things she'll probably not want to have said in a minute. “Do… do you think He’s real? The Maker, I mean?”

Sid is silent, for a long moment. At last, he shakes his head. “I can’t say anything for certain, but.... no. I don’t think he is. But the Maker’s not my god. He’s yours. So… I don’t think it’s my call to make, in the end.”

It’s not a good answer, not really. It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t make anything make more sense than it did before. But it feels like a real answer, in her head, more real than the mosaic lies and all the things through the mirrors. Her hands clench and release. “I just came here for a drink, you know?” She sighs. “This is too much fucking thinking.”

“You should get that drink, then.”

Sera stretches and rolls her shoulders, then slips off the table and goes over to the bar. The cabinets behind it are all askew - someone’s already picked the locks. Ah, there’s the rum. Two bottles, one about half-full and the other still unopened. She kneels down and grabs the unopened one. “Where’d you find that stuff you were having?” she asks. Her voice is almost steady again.

Sid leans over and picks up a dark wine bottle from the floor. “Here,” he says, walking over to Sera. He’s stuck his crown back on, though it’s a little askew. “Last one.” It’s got an obnoxiously fancy label on it, all swirly writing that she can’t make heads or tails of.” He sets it on the bar top with a satisfying thud. “Hey, can I ask you to do me a favor?”

“Course you can, Inky. What’s up?”

He raises his left hand, revealing the tiles from earlier. The mark-light bounces off of them like shattered glass. “Remember the books in the Vir Dirthara? I stole some.”

Sera squints. “Okay, the light in here’s pretty shit, but those don’t look like books to me.”

“Well, no. They aren’t real books, we just saw books because that’s the closest thing we have now, in the waking world. These are more like… memories. Ideas. I asked the Well how to make them solid, so we - so I could take them with me, and got... whatever these are. But here - if you touch them -” he holds out one.

“Is this going to do anything weird?” Sera asks, suspicious.

“Nothing too weird. It’s a bit like the mosaics. But simpler, because we’re awake. And also not full of lies.”

Oh. Well that’s alright then. Sera takes it. The tile is ripply rock, and heavier than it looks. Other than that, it doesn’t feel like anything. And then the _smell_ hits, cut grass and marmalade and rot. She feels vast, and warm, and sleepy, like she’s been lying in the sun for hours and hours with nothing to do. She is stretching, she is growing, brilliant and rainbow-bright. And then it’s all gone, just like it came. The tavern is cold, and dark, and doesn’t smell of much of anything. “What - what was it?” She knows it’s gone. The memory knew that.

“Some sort of flower, I think. From back in the days of ancient Arlathan. It must have been beautiful.”

She runs her thumb over the ripples. If she squints, she can almost see a sketch-shape, in that weird rainbow black. Some many-petaled thing, and a hint of curling vine. “It was,” she says. And like that - she knows it. It’s not a guess, something in her bones knows. It was beautiful, and it is gone.

Gently, Sid takes it from her hand. He’s laid a frilly red napkin out on the bar, and stacks the last tile in the middle with the others. “I spoke with Josephine and Cullen and Leliana earlier this evening,” he begins. He doesn’t look up from his hands, wrapping and tying the cloth neatly around the tiles. The glowy hand flares and fumbles. A corner slips through his finger. He swears under his breath and starts again. ”We agreed that stopping whatever the qunari are planning takes priority over everything else. I have to go find the Darvaraad. We’re set to leave at dawn. Sera, I -” he swallows. “If anything happens to me when I’m gone, I need you to take these to my clan in Wycome for me. Please.” He finishes the last knot and pushes the package across the bar.

Oh no. No no no. No one ever says ‘if anything happens’ and expects to get like, a kitten. Or a sack of gold. “ _Nothing’s_ going to happen to you! You’re the Herald! You killed Corpsey-fuck just fine. You’ll be fine now too. We’ll stop the Viddasala, and Lady Seeker’s going to get the healers here and -” Her voice cracks and she throws herself at Sid, wrapping him up in a bone-crushing hug. “You have to be fine. You’re my friend.”

Sid staggers back a step, but quickly regains his balance. “I know, Sera. I know. I’ll do my best. But please. Just in case. It would make me feel a lot better.”

“Alright.” She sniffles one last time into his shirt, wipes her face on the silky blue sash, and pulls back. She’s been doing way too much sniveling tonight. Gross. “I’ll look out for your weird books. But we’re gonna go there together. Throw bees at whatever dumb nobles are left or something. That’s a promise, yeah?” She tries to smile. To her shock, it works.

“It’s a promise.” Sid passes her the wine bottle and the package. “Enjoy yourself, Sera.”

It’s a bit of a trick, managing two bottles and the tiles. Eventually she gets a grip on both the bottles in one hand, though, and the tiles in the other. Sera starts towards the door, then stops, looking over her shoulder. “You want to come with?” she asks.

“I think I’m going to turn in for the night. Early start tomorrow.”

“You stay safe out there.”

“Always.” Inky waves and heads out the side door, wandering back into the darkness.

Her hands are full, so she has to kick the tavern door open instead. It swings wide, nearly whacking Thornton in the crossbow. He jumps back. “Maker, Sera, you startled me!” He frowns, looking over her face. It must be a mess, all blotchy and puffy. Way too much soppy shit going on. “Hey - did something happen in there?”

“I’m - I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.” Sera replies. She looks down at the bottles in her hand, then shoves them at Thornton too-quickly. “Here. You take this. I don’t feel much like drinking tonight.”

He fumbles the bottles, falling to one knee to catch them, and the crossbow hits the ground with a loud twang. But nothing breaks, at least. He looks up at Sera, concern in his eyes. “You’re _sure_?”

“I said it, didn’t I? Look, Inky’s heading out, so you’re off the hook. I’ve got some secret mission stuff to take care of anyways.” She lifts the wrapped package.

“Alright. But if you need anything-”

Sera nods, waving her hand. “- yeah, yeah, yeah, I know where they’ve got you lot sleeping. I’ll find you if there’s anything to talk about. Now go get smashed for me.”

“Yes, ser!” Thornton laughs. He gathers up the bottles and the crossbow. “See you around, Sera.”

And then it’s just her, and the cold Orlesian night, and a bundle of flat rocks in a hanky.

Sera doesn’t know where to go. Not to bed. She can’t sleep like this, thoughts going round loud as a nest of angry hornets. Her footsteps are too-loud in all the quiet. No fireworks tonight. No answers either. She flops down on the first bench she sees and stares at the stars. They’re still there, still twinkling overhead. One thing, at least, that doesn’t change. After a moment, she reaches into the pouch on her leg for her journal, and a nubbin of charcoal.

She’s gone through a lot of these since she joined the Inquisition. Stupid things keep falling off cliffs or getting eaten by wyverns. She flips back and forth through it, looking for a blank bit. There’s that big wreck they found off the Storm Coast with all those spindleweeds growing on it. The drawing she’s been working on of Widdle, smiling, with that cute button nose she always wants to kiss. She kisses it and sighs. Still not the same.

There’s one. Got some little dead stick qunari with arrows in them and that’s it. She puts her charcoal to the page below them. Words. Words. _I will_ \- no. Cross out. Try again. _Not right_ \- no. _Ghila_ \- not even! She throws the book down on the ground and screams wordlessly. Why are words so hard! Then it comes to her. She picks up the book, dusts it off. And slowly, carefully, she begins to trace the petals of a big beautiful flower.


End file.
